The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola
the type of the France of the Empire, embodying her grace and her faults. He is the type of the France that, sated with pleasure, rushed to disaster. Jean represents the new social couche, a new stratum, and is in some way emblematic of the France of the future. Now, I will confess that when I began writing my book, and had this idea of this friendship, I expected to be able to produce by its means a much greater effect than I think I have done. This friendship has not yielded all that I had hoped for from it.
'The first section of eight chapters opens with allusion to the trifling defeats on the frontier, it shows the Seventh Corps crowded back on to Rheims; but the principal subject of these chapters is the terrible march from Rheims to Sedan. It is an epic event, pregnant with the irony of fate, and, to my thinking, one of the most tragic military episodes that history records. There is no fighting described in this part; indeed, the only battle that I describe is Sedan. The tragedy lies in the exposition of the faults that gradually led up to the terrible disaster. The reader follows the movements of this ill-fated corps, knowing what a terrible shadow of defeat, disaster, and death overhangs it. It was a wonderful corps, and the way it was managed was wonderful in its crass stupidity.
'My second part is entirely devoted to a description of the battle of Sedan in all its phases, seen from all sides. I have omitted nothing which can help to a comprehension of that enormous episode in the histories of France and of the world. Now we are with Napoleon, now with the Emperor of Germany, now with the bourgeois of Sedan, now with the Francs-tireurs in the woods. Each movement of troops that contributed to the final dénouement is exposed. I have endeavoured to be complete, but as I have said, I had too little space for the immense amount of material in my hands. I have also endeavoured to speak the plain truth without either fear or favour. The reader will be aroused to compassion with the sufferings, bodily and mental, of the heroic and martyred army, just as he will be aroused to indignation at the conduct of its chiefs, which fell little short of downright dementia. It has been my duty to be severely critical, and I have not shrunk from the responsibility of wounding, where it was right and just to do so, susceptibilities which I see no reason for respecting. I dare say there will be some outcry at my blame, but I am indifferent, having spoken the truth.
'The last part of my novel is played out in Sedan, after the battle. From thence the reader follows the rest of the history of the war as it develops itself in other parts of France, until it culminates in the outbreak of the Commune and the final collapse of Paris in a sea of fire and an ocean of blood. The last chapter of the book is an account of Paris in flames, of Paris with its gutters running with blood. I hope by this means to produce a gradation of effect—the catastrophe of Sedan, which ends the second part, followed up by the still greater catastrophe of the last chapter. To resume: The first part of my novel is the march from Rheims to Sedan; the second is the catastrophe of Sedan, from inception to dénouement; and the third the collapse not of Paris alone, but of the whole of old-time France, with the dénouement of the burning of Paris, the flames of which clear away not only an old régime, but a whole psychological state, and prepare a fresh field for a new and regenerated people. For observe, that my book, as far as outward construction goes, divided into three parts, may also be divided into a novel of historical and a novel of psychological interest. It tells a tale of many adventures, but it also aims to give a full list of psychological studies of French society as it was at the outbreak of the war.
'My novels have always been written with a higher aim than merely to amuse. I have so high an opinion of the novel as a means of expression—I consider it parallel with lyrical poetry, as the highest form of literary expression, just as in the last century the drama was the highest form of expression—that it is on this account that I have chosen it as the form in which to present to the world what I wish to say on the social, scientific, and psychological problems that occupy the minds of thinking men. But for this I might have said what I wanted to say to the world in another form. But the novel has to-day risen from the place which it held in the last century at the table of the banquet of letters. It was then the idle pastime of the hour, and sat low down between the fable and the idyll. To-day it contains, or may be made to contain, everything; and it is because that is my creed that I am a novelist. I have, to my thinking, certain contributions to make to the thought of the world on certain subjects, and I have chosen the novel as the best way of communicating these contributions to the world. Thus "La Débâcle," in the form of a very precise and accurate relation of a series of historical facts—in other words, in the form of a realistic historical novel—is a document on the psychology of France in 1870. This will explain the enormous number of characters which figure in the book. Each character represents one état d'âme psychologique of the France of the day. If my work be well done, the reader will be able to understand what was in men's minds and what was the bent of men's minds—what they thought, and how they thought, at that period.'
As might have been expected with a work dealing with such a question as the last Franco-German War, 'La Débâcle' has given rise to considerable controversy in France. Some ultra-bellicose Frenchmen, and among them M. de Vogue of the Academy, have taunted the author with a lack of patriotism, their notion being apparently that they ought never to be told the truth concerning themselves. Other persons have impeached M. Zola's accuracy with regard to various matters of detail, and a few have gone so far as to accuse him of having written that which he must have known to be untrue. It may be as well to notice some of the charges here.
It is said that there are no hop-gardens on the road from Mulhausen to Altkirch, as will be found stated in Chapter II. (Part I.), and in this instance it would really appear that M. Zola has fallen into error. Viewing the road from a distance, and being very short-sighted, he doubtless mistook vineyards for hop-grounds. The error is in some degree excusable, however, when it is remembered that in this part of Alsace the vines are trained to poles ten and eleven feet high. It is also denied that vast sums of money were distributed among the men of the Seventh Army Corps without any written acknowledgment at the close of the battle of Sedan, as will be found stated in Chapter VII. (Part II.). I have reason to believe that it was the money of another army corps which was thus distributed, and that M. Zola transposed the incident for the purposes of his story. A little license of this kind is surely allowable in a work of fiction. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the well-known Bonapartist politician and journalist, denies that Napoleon III. had his face rouged and powdered on the morning of the battle of Sedan (Sept. 1), in proof of which he mentions that he was with Napoleon during the whole of the battle of Mouzon (Aug. 30), and also frequently ate at the Imperial table during the campaign. M. Zola does not state that Napoleon habitually painted his face. He says (Chapters I. and III., Part II.) that he did so on one occasion only, early on the morning of Sept. 1, and that the rouge, &c., was entirely washed away by perspiration at 11 a.m., when he returned into the town from the front. The battle of Mouzon and what occurred at other times during the campaign have nothing to do with the matter, and M. de Cassagnac's so-called denial is beside the question. The same may be said of the denials of M. Robert Mitchell, another Bonapartist politician and journalist, and of the Princess Mathilde Bonaparte, daughter of King Jerôme. The princess was not even at Sedan, and can know nothing of the matter. Moreover, is it likely that she would admit the accuracy of any statement at all disparaging to the memory of Napoleon III.? Is it likely that M. de Cassagnac would do so? Or M. Robert Mitchell either? These gentlemen upheld the Imperial régime through thick and thin, and the former, at any rate, was most liberally rewarded for his services. He has, therefore, good reason to be prejudiced. M. Zola declares that he had the information in dispute in part from 'a certain lady,' and in part from various people of Sedan, and so far there is nothing to prove that it is inaccurate.
I may, perhaps, be allowed to add that I have given considerable time and care to the translation of 'La Débâcle.' I have always tried to give the sense and substance of M. Zola's narrative, though at times I have found myself unable to use his actual words. In matters of translation, however, I am of the opinion of Thackeray, which was also that expressed by James Howell in one of his often-quoted 'Familiar Letters.' Here and there I have appended to the